Experimenting with network topology and throughput.

[agent_kith]

So I was always running Untangle (and pfSense) directly on the Celeron hardware. About two months ago I decided to virtualise and run the firewall in a hypervisor instead. In other words, I am going to run Untangle in a virtual machine...

The reasons for this is it'll be easier for me to manage the firewall, backup the image and so on. Also, because I am now running in a VM, network setup is simplied - I only need to connect all the network cables from the switch into the Celeron without really needing to follow the others i.e. All I need is to connect 6 network cables from the switch to the Celeron, the order of connection to the Celeron does not matter - this is because I am running LACP.

Things are running real good. And I'm now running two VMs on the Celeron, the first is the firewall, the second is a reverse proxy server. Ultimate bandwidth is compromised. This cannot be helped I guess because of the extra layer of stuffs.

PHP Code:

[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec  1.08 GBytes   930 Mbits/sec 


So it's time for a change. I have decided to pull the trigger and go full Unifi... First up will be the Unifi Dream Machine Pro. This is a 1U router.
 

In truth the hardware of this is far inferior to the Celeron, so it's a unknown how this will fare. Another big question is how well will this router deal with routing Jumbo VLANs vs non Jumbo VLANs. I will also upgrade my 48 port Unifi to the newer Gen2 model at a future date.

So stay tuned. For a quick review writeup of these two network equipment, and how to set them up for audiophile listening.